Thursday, 6 June 2013

On the other side of the world a secondary school student has been fined $1000 and denied her high school diploma for daring to wear an eagle feather, the symbol of her belonging to the Poarch Band of Creek Indians.

Meanwhile here in Aotearoa just recently - same root of colonial values, different venue of cultural attack - we've had the Air NZ approach to Māori
art and images - "if it's on someone's arm, it makes you unemployable,
if it's on our plane, it's a brand."

These things are kinda shocking, right? Indigenous people not being allowed to go about daily business, in the place they are from, their tūrangawaewae, wearing symbols of their belonging without penalties.

It's not new of course. Which is precisely why, when it happens, again, it should be immediately recognisable as cultural imperialism.

So in some ways such cultural imperialism is unsurprising. Even when Air New Zealand, from planes to their offices, is literally swimming in appropriated Māori imagery. Plastic tiki, anyone? Brand new tiki teeshirt?

If the ongoing cultural imperialism is unsurprising in a country where most of us are still all too ignorant of the harms colonisation has caused, so too is the response. Clare Nathan, the woman seeking employment while wearing tā moko, is fighting for her rights like hundreds of thousands of other indigenous peoples before her. From me, tautoko. It will be interesting to see how the Human Rights Commission responds.

3:16 - I'm not debating impacts of colonisation in this comment thread, but if you post something as offensive as "colonisation saved them" again, I will delete the comment. Please go read some history - your comment is so hopelessly ill-informed that engaging with it would require an essay which I don't have time to write. I'm leaving it up solely as an example of how ignorant the lack of education in Aotearoa leaves people when it comes to our own history.

I have read a bit of NZ history, especially after I heard things from revisionists I felt were incorrect. I still think that Eurpean influence, especially of the missionaries, saw a leap in freedom and security for Maori. Feel free to delete what you don't like - its your site.

It's also an equality issue. Air NZ's female uniforms are all short or 3/4 sleeve length whereas the male uniform is long sleeve. Therefore a male with a similar tattoo (of any kind whether ta moko or not) does not have this issue.